I.

"And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?"
My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way
Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send!
What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed,
Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow
"Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low,
Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft."
"All these and more I soon shall see for thee!"
He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge
On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge,
And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.
He went and came. But no man knows the    track
Of his last journey, and he comes not back!

II.

He brought us wonders of the new and old;
We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent
To him...

    Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
        How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
    Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
        Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
    Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
        Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
    For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
        I tremble to approach an angry God,
    And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

    Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
        Fain promise never more to disobey;
    But, should my Author health again dispense,
        Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
    Again in folly's path might go astray;
        Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
    Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

I.

    Now Nature hangs her mantle green
        On every blooming tree,
    And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
        Out o'er the grassy lea:
    Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
        And glads the azure skies;
    But nought can glad the weary wight
        That fast in durance lies.

II.

    Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
        Aloft on dewy wing;
    The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
        Makes woodland echoes ring;
    The mavis wild wi' mony a note,
        Sings drowsy day to rest:
    In love and freedom they rejoice,
        Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

III.

    Now blooms the lily by the bank,
        The primrose down the brae;
    The hawthorn's budding in the glen,

King, that hast reign’d six hundred years, and grown
In power, and ever growest, since thine own
Fair Florence honouring thy nativity,
Thy Florence now the crown of Italy,
Hath sought the tribute of a verse from me,
I, wearing but the garland of a day,
Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away.

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

    Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
To-day's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I...

        The wintry sun was pale
            On hill and hedge;
        The wind smote with its flail
            The seeded sedge;
        High up above the world,
            New taught to fly,
        The withered leaves were hurled
            About the sky;
        And there, through death and dearth,
            It went and came,--
        The Glory of the earth
            That hath no name.

        I know not what it is;
            I only know
        It quivers in the bliss
            Where roses blow,
        That on the winter's breath
            It broods in space,
        And o'er the face of death
            I see its face,
        And start and stand between
            Delight and dole,
        As though m...

Tu semper amoris
Sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago.

VAL. FLAC. 'Argonaut', iv. 36.


1.

Friend of my youth! when young we rov'd,
Like striplings, mutually belov'd,
With Friendship's purest glow;
The bliss, which wing'd those rosy hours,
Was such as Pleasure seldom showers
On mortals here below.


2.

The recollection seems, alone,
Dearer than all the joys I've known,
When distant far from you:
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!


3.

My pensive mem'ry lingers o'er,
Those scenes to be enjoy'd no more,
Those scenes regretted ever;
The measure of our youth is full,
Life's evening dream is dark and dull,

I would not wish the burning blaze
Of fame around a restless world,
The thunder and the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard and hurled.
I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-bye;
But in some nook of fairyland,
Seen in the praise of beauty's eye.

Before the press scarce one could see
A little-peeping-part of thee;
But since thou'rt printed, thou dost call
To show thy nakedness to all.
My care for thee is now the less,
Having resign'd thy shamefac'dness.
Go with thy faults and fates; yet stay
And take this sentence, then away:
Whom one belov'd will not suffice,
She'll run to all adulteries.

AFTER LEE O. HARRIS

The master-hand whose pencils trace
    This wondrous landscape of the morn,
Is but the sun, whose glowing face
Reflects the rapture and the grace
    Of inspiration Heaven-born.

And yet with vision-dazzled eyes,
    I see the lotus-lands of old,
Where odorous breezes fall and rise,
And mountains, peering in the skies,
    Stand ankle-deep in lakes of gold.

And, spangled with the shine and shade,
    I see the rivers raveled out
In strands of silver, slowly fade
In threads of light along the glade
    Where truant roses hide and pout.

The tamarind on gleaming sands
    Droops drowsily beneath the heat;
And bowed as though aweary, stands
The stately palm, with lazy hands
    That fold their shadows...

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
The sound surceases and the sense expires.
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.

I see the grass shake in the sun for leagues on either hand,
I see a river loop and run about a treeless land,
An empty plain, a steely pond, a distance diamond-clear,
And low blue naked hills beyond. And what is that to fear?"

"Go softly by that river-side or, when you would depart,
You'll find its every winding tied and knotted round your heart.
Be wary as the seasons pass, or you may ne'er outrun
The wind that sets that yellowed grass a-shiver 'neath the Sun."

I hear the summer storm outblown, the drip of the grateful wheat.
I hear the hard trail telephone a far-off horse's feet.
I hear the horns of Autumn blow to the wild-fowl overhead;
And I hear the hush before the snow. And what is that to dread?"

"Take heed what spell the lightning weaves, what charm the...

Paths that wind
O'er the hills and by the streams
I must leave behind -
Dawns and dews and dreams.
Trails that go
Through the woods and down the slopes
To the vale below;
Done with fears and hopes,
I must wander on
Till the purple twilight ends,
Where the sun has gone -
Faces, flowers and friends.

    Friend of the Poet, tried and leal,
    Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal;
    Alake, alake, the meikle deil
        Wi' a' his witches
    Are at it, skelpin' jig and reel,
        In my poor pouches!

    I modestly fu' fain wad hint it,
    That one pound one, I sairly want it,
    If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it,
        It would be kind;
    And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted
        I'd bear't in mind.

    So may the auld year gang out moaning
    To see the new come laden, groaning,
    Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin
        To thee and thine;
    Domestic peace and comforts crowning
        The hale design.

Postscript.

    Ye've heard this while how I've been licket,
    And by felt death wa...

O Mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot
Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude;
Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude
A field or two of brighter green, or plot
Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot
Of stationary sunshine: thou hast viewed
These only, Duddon! with their paths renewed
By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not.
Thee hath some awful Spirit impelled to leave,
Utterly to desert, the haunts of men,
Though simple thy companions were and few;
And through this wilderness a passage cleave
Attended but by thy own voice, save when
The clouds and fowls of the air thy way pursue!

One would say your gaze was a misted screen:
your strange eyes (are they blue, grey or green?)
changeable, tender, dreamy, cruel, and again
echoing the indolence and pallor of heaven.

You bring me those blank days, mild and hazy,
that melt bewitched hearts into weeping,
when twisted, stirred by some unknown hurt,
our over-stretched nerves mock the numbed spirit.

Often you resemble the loveliest horizons
lit by the suns of foggy seasons....
how splendid you are, a dew-wet country,
inflamed by the rays of a misted sky!

O dangerous woman, o seductive glow,
will I someday adore your frost and snow,
and learn to draw, from implacable winter
sharp-edged as steel or ice, new pleasure?

I.

    O thou dread Power, who reign'st above!
        I know thou wilt me hear,
    When for this scene of peace and love
        I make my prayer sincere.

II.

    The hoary sire, the mortal stroke,
        Long, long, be pleased to spare;
    To bless his filial little flock
        And show what good men are.

III.

    She who her lovely offspring eyes
        With tender hopes and fears,
    O, bless her with a mother's joys,
        But spare a mother's tears!

IV.

    Their hope, their stay, their darling youth,
        In manhood's dawning blush,
    Bless him, thou GOD of love and truth,
        Up to a parent's wish!

V.

    The beauteous, seraph sister-band,
        With...

What heartache - ne'er a hill!
Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill
The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.
With one poor word they tell me all they know;
Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,
Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again.
They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:
Always the same, the same.

Nature hath no surprise,
No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes
From brake or lurking dell or deep defile;
No humors, frolic forms - this mile, that mile;
No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes
Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes.
Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:
Ever the same, the same.

Oh might I through these tears
But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,
Where white the quartz and pink the pebble s...